The coronavirus pandemic has marked a sea change in how Canadians receive health care. While just four per cent of primary care visits were conducted virtually pre-pandemic, that rose to roughly 60 per cent after the onset of the global health crisis. This represents an opportunity to reshape how health care can be delivered and, in […]
Canadian employers are turning their focus to updating their benefits plans and ensuring a strong employee experience in an effort to address the challenges employees are facing in the coronavirus pandemic and to attract key talent in a tight labour market. “Many companies are adding new services to their benefits plans to support their employees […]
Living with Type 1 diabetes is like having a full-time job on top of managing a day job and life commitments — one that involves making constant risk assessments and difficult decisions throughout the day. “‘How many carbs did I eat? How much insulin do I need for that? Am I going to exercise later […]
Benefits plans tend to support employees dealing with either mild or severe mental-health symptoms, but an entire middle category of plan members lack a treatment option geared toward their moderate symptoms. As such, plan sponsors should think about matching services with severity when they’re considering which mental-health programs to incorporate into their benefits plans, said […]
When Kristy Dickinson’s health took a turn eight years ago and she was diagnosed with a rare and complex disease, she stepped away from her role in recruitment. Managing her chronic illness — from the appointments with her specialist, the information-gathering and sharing across three hospital jurisdictions and the medications and expenses — was too […]
Employers, employees and benefits advisors alike have long struggled with the inefficient and largely paper-based approach to administrating benefits. Advisors face long wait times for quotes, employers face the annoyance of a slow onboarding process that prevents employees from accessing their benefits immediately after enrolment and employees can have difficulty submitting claims and face confusion […]
Yale University and some of its employees have settled a class-action lawsuit over the university’s employee wellness program for US$1.29 million net of lawyers’ fees. The Healthy Expectations Program required its 5,000 unionized staff and their spouses to pay US$25 for every week they declined to participate in the program, for a total penalty of […]
It took an “intense, painful and scary” flare and emergency surgery at age 38 for Marie-Josée Lafleur (pictured right) to finally be diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease, after being misdiagnosed for 15 years. IBD, which is typically diagnosed between ages 16 and 30, is caused by the body’s immune system attacking the gastrointestinal tract, creating […]
Women who develop inflammatory arthritis or psoriasis often do so in the prime of their lives, leaving them with concerns related to their reproductive and sexual health. But they struggle to find support in their employer-sponsored benefits plans. “We know that diversity, equity and inclusion are a really big piece of [human resources] these days,” […]
Canadian Forest Products Ltd.’s new financial wellness program may have originated as the brainchild of its defined contribution pension plan committee, but it’s just as applicable to its defined benefit plan members — and the organization chose to roll it out for all employees. When you have broad financial wellness topics, it’s fine, but when […]